For his health, Ariz. man leaves city for ghost town

Dave Rhodes moved to Cleator, Ariz., a town of just a handful of people, in 1998 from Phoenix to escape what he called "poison food." He weighed more than 600 pounds. He would become a fixture in this community.
David Wallace, The Arizona Republic

Ron Dungan, The Arizona Republic
9:39 a.m. MST October 21, 2013

David Rhodes sought the solitude of the Arizona desert to save his life from easy access to fast food.

When Dave Rhodes left Phoenix for Cleator, Ariz., in 1998, he weighed 627 pounds. He lost about 300 pounds since leaving Phoenix. "I've had people come in and just turn around and walk and leave. I don't know if they think this is the 'Hills Have Eyes' or whatnot," Rhodes said about customers at the Cleator Bar.(Photo: David Wallace, The Arizona Republic)

Story Highlights

Weighing 627 pounds, David Rhodes left Phoenix for Cleator, Ariz.

A true ghost town, fewer than 10 people live in Cleator where Rhodes tended bar

He weighed 627 pounds in June 1998, when he left his home in the Phoenix neighborhood of Sunnyslope. Fast food beckoned from every corner, and he could summon pizza to his doorstep with a phone call. He decided it was time to leave before it was too late.

He found a used camper shell for his truck, packed his things and drove north, out of metro Phoenix — population: about 2.8 million.

He climbed toward the Bradshaw Mountains, where a friend of his had a mining claim near the ghost town of Cleator.

Rhodes parked the truck near a thicket of mesquite and cactus and bungeed a tarp over the camper top. He laid down old railroad ties for steps and unloaded a couch and some books.

"I had to stay away from easy access to what I call poison," Rhodes said.

The city was far away, and Rhodes, for the most part, was alone. He was alive and losing weight.

In Phoenix, Rhodes' father bought a four-wheel-drive truck. Every Wednesday, he drove to the camp and dropped off food and water.

Rhodes ate nothing but fruits and vegetables at first. He ate beefsteak tomatoes with salt. He ate raw carrots until he could barely stand them.

He gradually added rice and beans. Then tuna.

The Bradshaws were close and jagged and the night sky was dark, the stars bright.

"I loved it, actually," he said.

He had budgeted for the essentials when he planned his escape, but he had not budgeted for ice, and he realized he would need it.

So, on a summer day, he went into Cleator, a ghost town where only a few souls remain.

He walked into the Cleator Bar and asked the woman inside, Carolyn Ripley, if he could do some work. He remembered that the woman's boyfriend laughed at his question. Work here? You should just buy the place, the man said.

The bar, which is still owned by descendants of the Cleator family, was not for sale. But the liquor license, which was held by Ripley, was.

Dave Rhodes in 1998, shortly after moving to the town of Cleator, Ariz. He weighed more than 600 pounds.(Photo: Courtesy of Dave Rhodes via The Arizona Republic)

Rhodes shrugged and went back to his camp.

Almost washed out during a storm, Rhodes returned to Phoenix. By then, he had lost about 100 pounds.

At home, he saw some friends. He talked to his parents and mentioned the ice, the job and the Cleator Bar. He stayed for a week. Then he went back to clean up what was left of his camp.

There wasn't much. He wasn't sure what he would do.

"I wasn't moving back to Phoenix. I had already determined that," Rhodes said.

But he and his father figured out a plan.

A few months later, Rhodes' father owned the liquor license, and Rhodes was tending the only bar in Cleator — population: 5.

The Cleator Bar

The Cleator Bar was once owned by James Cleator, a prospector, rancher and local entrepreneur who reportedly went to sea at the age of 12 and later made his way to Arizona. In 1915, Cleator made a deal with his business partner that left him owner of the town of Turkey Creek. He ran the town's bar, general store and post office, and eventually renamed the town after himself.

"Cleator was a lively place where ranchers, miners and railroad workers converged," Philip Varney writes in "Arizona Ghost Towns and Mining Camps." It was downhill from the Crown King mine and a railroad passed through town.

“I have to remind myself not to take it for granted, ever. I'm no longer trying to get away. I'm here.”

David Rhodes

Eventually, the mines played out, Crown King became a vacation spot and Cleator was a stop along the way.

The town is still owned by descendants of the Cleator family, who want the property preserved as a ghost town, which is fine with the people who live there. Tenants are allowed to do what is necessary to keep the buildings standing, and to remodel the inside, but that's all.

Rhodes continued to lose weight, though not at the rate he had lost that summer in camp. Many came to know him as Big Dave.

"I remember moving here and there was no lights to the north, and you could see the Milky Way, even on a full-moon night," Rhodes said. "I like to daydream at night, if that makes sense."

Meeting his future wife

The Cleator Bar and General Store are a patchwork of wood, concrete and corrugated metal. On the left is a bar, a dim room of old license plates, photos, beer signs and dollar bills signed by patrons. A cowboy hat hangs on a wagon wheel. There is a mural of Tom Cleator on a wall by the bar that says: Cleator — Gateway to the Bradshaws.

One day, not long after Rhodes started, a troop of Girl Scouts from Mayer, Ariz., came in hopes of selling cookies. One of the scout leaders, a woman named Darlene, led them into the bar and watched as they made their pitch for the sugary treats.

A few months after the Girl Scouts' visit, Rhodes went to nearby Spring Valley, Ariz., and walked into a convenience store to place an order. There, working in the store, was Darlene.

"I went in and asked her if she could order me some diet root beer," Rhodes remembered. "And she noticed how I had my belt wrapped around my waist, because I used to have an 84-inch waist."

They talked. He was friendlier this time, and later, he called her. One day he invited her out to Cleator for his birthday. He was a perfect gentleman, she recalled. She started coming out to visit.

One day he was carrying a gun in his pocket, she remembered. It wasn't even his gun. It needed some work and he was just going to fix it for a friend, but it tumbled out of his pocket and shot him in the foot.

"He couldn't be up on his feet," Darlene recalled. "I just stayed out here to take care of him and here I am. I never left."

They were married in 2006 right in front of the Cleator store. Rhodes' father gave the place a facelift and repainted the sign, and the doors were opened for the first time in about 35 years. Dave wore a tux and Darlene wore a white dress. The two said their vows on the wooden steps.

The following Easter, Rhodes had a stroke. He recovered but sometimes slurred his words, even years later.

Rhodes lost about 300 pounds since leaving Phoenix, but he no longer lived in Cleator to lose weight.

The jagged peaks were in the background. The bar and the Cleator store, the stairs where he got married, were in the foreground.

"I have to remind myself not to take it for granted, ever," he said. "I'm no longer trying to get away. I'm here."

Cleator — population: 8 — was home.

Few visitors to Cleator

The bar could attract the thirsty and the curious. It had signs for Coors and Budweiser and other domestic beers, and then there was that sign right there in the middle of the desert — BAR. But the buildings are unpainted, and Rhodes hadn't bought a razor in 20 years.

"I've had people come in and just turn around and walk and leave," Rhodes said. "I don't know if they think this is The Hills Have Eyes or whatnot."

Dave Rhodes' father bought the liquor license for the Cleator Bar and made his son the manager.(Photo: David Wallace, The Arizona Republic)

Still, Cleator is a stopover for people on their way to Crown King.

"It'll be raining in camp, or cold, so they come into the bar," Rhodes said.

"Once people get here they just love it and they come back," Rhodes said. They come from Phoenix and nearby towns and they come from around the world.

"I've had the Rutgers rugby team at the bar," he said. "I've had a Brazilian soccer team at the bar. I've got letters from Japan of people that have been at the bar and the funny part is they didn't know the address. It would just be 'Big Dave at the Cleator Bar on the road to Crown King, USA.' "

“I had to stay away from easy access to what I call poison.”

David Rhodes, on leaving Phoenix

During the Gladiator Fire in the summer of 2012, Crown King was evacuated, and Cleator opened its doors.

Darlene and Dave Rhodes spent their own money to feed people, and when word spread about their generosity, donations poured in until there was a buffet spread at the bar — bread, pasta, sausage, soup, ham and turkey.

On a summer afternoon earlier this year, old friends stopped in, a couple who had been evacuees during the fire.

They didn't stay long — a beer for him, water for her, just long enough to say "hi."

"Have a nice day," the woman said as they left.

Rhodes whirled around, replying, "Don't tell me what to do."

The afternoon light softened as the clouds swirled, and rain fell on hills far away.

"My intention is to live here the rest of my life," Rhodes said.

He was 49 years old.

A week later, he had a heart attack and died in his sleep.

A celebration of life

On Sept. 28, the Cleator Bar celebrated the life of David Rhodes.

Relatives from out of town showed up at midmorning. Some Cleator residents opened the bar and set to work on a spread of food in a back room that led outside, to a big grill and a couple of horseshoe pits.

Guests came from Crown King, Mayer, Payson, Mesa, Safford. A childhood friend, Dave Garis, came from Bakersfield, Calif. Garis knew Rhodes when they were both growing up in Ohio, before his family moved to Phoenix.

"They lived on a farm," Garis said. "They had barns and stuff. We'd go up to the top level and jump down in the hay."

“I just stayed out here to take care of him and here I am. I never left.”

Darlene Rhodes

They kept in touch. Garis said he has lived all over the country, but he never lost touch with Rhodes, and about a year ago he found himself on the porch at the bar in Cleator.

Greg Flores, of Crown King, remembered the Gladiator Fire. "That's one of the reasons I'm here," he said. "Darlene, she took care of my kids like they were her kids. ... They would put up big meals out for everybody," he said. "That kind of kindness just touches people's hearts, and you don't see a lot of that anymore."

"He was a dream," said Eileen Newton of Payson. "He really was. Nobody was a stranger." If you broke down in the desert, Rhodes would get some people together and get you out, she said. "Nobody was a stranger and nobody was stranded."

Inside the bar was a rack of clothing. People were welcome to take the clothes if they knew someone who could wear them. At the front of the rack was a shirt that said Big Dave.

Flint Carney grabbed some of the clothes for a friend, a big guy who likes Cleator, saying it was best the clothes go to someone who knows about Rhodes. "It'll be a piece of him that just keeps going," Carney said.

"I found out he was loved by a lot more people than I ever knew," said Dave Rhodes Sr.

Later in the afternoon, Dave Sr. climbed the wooden steps of the Cleator store and addressed the crowd.

"I miss my son," he said. "He loved it here. He wouldn't have wanted to live anywhere else."

All day, people came and went, eating, drinking, laughing. At its peak, for just a little while,tiny Cleator had grown to population 125.

Harmony Lofland, a part-time Cleator resident who works at the bar, said she had never seen the place so crowded.

Darlene Rhodes talks to a friend at a "celebration of life" gathering for her husband, Dave Rhodes, on Sept. 28, 2013. Rhodes died Aug. 27, 2013, at the age of 49.(Photo: David Wallace, The Arizona Republic)